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Sensation and Perception
Chapter 3
What is sensation?
 Sensation allows us to receive information from the world
around us
 Information flowing in from the environment makes its way
to the brain through our sensory organs
 i.e. eyes, ears, nose, skin, and taste buds
 Sensation occurs when special receptors in the sense organs
are activated, allowing various forms of outside stimuli to
become neural signals in the brain
 Transduction – the process of converting outside stimuli,
such as light or sound, into neural activity
Sensory Receptors
 Sensory receptors – specialized forms of neurons
 Instead of receiving neurotransmitters from other cells, these receptor
cells are stimulated by different kinds of energy
 Ex. Receptors in the eyes are stimulated by light
 receptors in the ears are activated by sound vibrations
 Touch receptors are stimulated by pressure or temperature
 Receptors for taste and smell are triggered by chemical substances
Sensory Thresholds
 Ernst Weber – conducted studies trying to determine the smallest
difference between two weights that could be detected
 Led to formulation of Weber’s Law of Just Noticeable Differences
(jnd) or difference threshold
 Jnd – the smallest difference between two stimuli that is detectable
50% of the time
 Weber’s law simply means that whatever the difference between stimuli
might be, it is always a constant
 Ex.You have a cup of coffee containing 5 teaspoons of sugar
 If to notice a difference in the amount of sugar in the coffee you have to add
another teaspoon, then the percentage of change needed to detect a just
noticeable difference is 1/5 or 20%
 So if a cup of coffee has 10 teaspoons of sugar in it, you would have to add
another 20%, or 2 more teaspoons, to be able to taste the difference half of
the time
Sensory Thresholds
 Gustav Fechner – expanded Weber’s ideas, came up with the
absolute threshold
 The lowest level of stimulation that a person can consciously detect
50% of the time the stimulation is present
 Ex. Assuming an individual possesses normal hearing ability, when
placed in a very quiet room, how far away can someone sit and
he/she might still hear the tick of their watch half of the time
Sense
Threshold
Sight
A candle flame at 30 miles on a clear, dark night
Hearing
The tick of a watch 20 feet away in a quiet room
Smell
One drop of perfume diffused throughout a 3-room apartment
Taste
1 teaspoon of sugar in 2 gallons of water
Touch
A bee’s wing falling on the cheek from 1 centimeter above
Subliminal Perception?
 Stimuli that are below the level of conscious awareness are called
subliminal stimuli
 These stimuli are just strong enough to activate the sensory receptors
but not strong enough for people to be consciously aware of them
 Many people believe that these stimuli act upon the unconscious
mind, influencing behavior in a process called subliminal
perception
 Many researchers have gathered scientific evidence that subliminal
perception does not work in advertising
 Contrary to popular belief….
Actual Subliminal Perception
 Although research suggests subliminal perception does not work
in advertising, that doesn’t mean it does not exist
 A growing body of evidence suggests that we process some stimuli
without conscious awareness
 Especially stimuli that are fearful or threatening
 Using event-related potentials (ERPs) and functional magnetic
resonance imaging (fMRI) researchers have verified the existence
of subliminal perception and associated learning in the laboratory
 These studies use stimuli that are above the sensory threshold but
below the level of conscious awareness
 These stimuli typically influence automatic reactions (ex. Tensing
of the facial muscles) rather than direct voluntary behaviors (ex.
Going out and purchasing a product)
Habituation and Sensory Adaptation
 Lower centers of the brain filter sensory stimulation and
“ignore” or prevent conscious attention to stimuli that do not
change
 The brain is only interested in changes in information
 Ex. This is why people usually don’t notice the hum of an air
conditioner or hear noises in a classroom until it gets very quiet
 Although people are actually hearing the noises (hum of the air
conditioner) they aren’t paying attention to it, this is called
habituation
 Habituation – tendency of the brain to stop attending to constant,
unchanging information
Habituation and Sensory Adaptation
 Another process by which constant, unchanging information from
the sensory receptors is effectively ignored is sensory
adaptation
 Sensory adaptation – tendency of sensory receptor cells to become
less responsive to a stimulus that is unchanging
 Ex. When you first come into your house, you smell the odor of the garbage
can in the kitchen, but after a while the smell seems to go away
 Ex. When you eat, the food you put in your mouth tastes strong at first, but as
you keep eating the same thing, the taste somewhat fades
 Different from habituation
 Habituation: sensory receptors are still responding to stimulation but the
lower centers of the brain are not sending the signals from those receptors to
the cortex
 Sensory adaptation: the receptor cells themselves become less responsive to
an unchanging stimulus and the receptors no longer send signals to the brain
 Smell, taste, and touch are all subject to sensory adaptation
Sensory Adaptation and Vision
 Does sensory adaptation occur for visual stimuli?
 If you stare at something long enough, will it disappear?
 NO
 The eyes are different
 Even though the sensory receptors in the back of the eyes adapt to
and become less responsive to a constant visual stimulus, under
ordinary circumstances the eyes are never entirely still
 There is a constant movement of the eyes, tiny vibrations called
saccadic movements that people don’t consciously notice
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ig76-rzPkc8
 These movements keep the eyes from adapting to what they see
 Good thing, because otherwise a lot of students would probably go blind
from staring off into space…
Perceptual Properties of Light:
Catching the Waves
 Light actually consists of tiny “packets” of waves called photons
 Photons have specific wavelengths
 3 aspects of our perception of light
 Brightness: determined by the amplitude of the wave (how high or low
the wave actually is)
 Higher the wave the brighter the light appears to be
 Color: largely determined by the length of the wave
 Long wavelengths are found at the red end of the visible spectrum (the portion of
the whole spectrum of light that is visible to the human eye)
 Shorter wavelengths are found at the blue end
 Saturation: the purity of the color people perceive
 A highly saturated red (or blue) would contain only red (or blue) wavelengths
 Ex. When a child is using the red paint from a set of poster paints, the paint on the
paper will look like a pure red, but if the child mixes in some white paint, the
paint will look pink. Hue is still red but it is less saturated because of the white
wavelengths
From Front to Back: The Parts of the
Eye
 What happens to an image being viewed as the photons of light
from that image travel through the eye?
 Light enters the eye directly from a source (ex. The sun) or indirectly
by reflecting off of an object
 To see clearly, a single point of light from a source or reflected
from an object must travel through the structures of the eye and
land on the retina as a single point
 Light bends as it passes through substances of different densities,
through a process called refraction
 Ex. When looking at a drinking straw in a glass of water from the side
of the glass, the straw appears to be bent
From Front to Back: The Parts of the
Eye
 The surface of the eye is covered in a clear membrane called
the cornea
 Cornea protects the eye and also focuses most of the light
coming into the eye
 Cornea has a fixed curvature, like a camera
From Front to Back: The Parts of the Eye
 Past the cornea, the next layer is a
clear, watery fluid called the
aqueous humor
 This fluid is continually
replenished and supplies
nourishment to the eye
 Light from a visual image then
enters the interior of the eye
through a hole, called the pupil, in
a round muscle called the iris (the
colored part of the eye)
 The iris can change the size of the
pupil, letting more or less light
into the eye
 This also helps focus the image;
people try to do the same thing by
squinting
From Front to Back: The Parts of the
Eye
 Behind the iris, is the lens, which is suspended by muscles
 The lens finishes the focusing process begun by the cornea
 Visual accommodation – the lens changes its shape from thick to
thin, enabling it to focus on objects that are close or far away
 Variation in thickness allows the lens to project a sharp image on the retina
 People lose this ability as the lens hardens through aging
 Past the lens, light passes through a large, open space filled with a clear,
jelly-like fluid called the vitreous humor
 This fluid, like the aqueous humor, also nourishes the eye and gives it shape
Retina, Rods, and Cones
 The final stop for light within the eye is the retina, a light-sensitive
area at the back of the eye
 3 areas of the retina
 Rods and cones – special cells that respond to the various light waves
 part that actually receives the photons of light and turns them into neural signals
to the brain
 Bipolar cells – type of interneuron that receives neural signals from the
rods and cones and sends them to the ganglion cells
 Ganglion cells – neurons whose axons form the optic nerve, receives
neural signals from the bipolar cells
The Blind Spot
 Saccadic movements keep the eyes adapting to constant
stimuli
 But, if people stare with one eye at one spot long enough,
objects that slowly cross their visual field may at one point
disappear briefly because there is a “hole” in the retina
 Blind spot – the place where all the axons of those ganglion
cells leave the retina to become the optic nerve, insensitive to
light
 There are no rods and cones in the blind spot
How the Eye Works: Through the Eyes to
the Brain
 Light entering the eyes can be separated into the left and right
visual fields (refer to diagram 3.4, pg. 96 in text)
 Light from the right visual field falls on the left side of each retina
 Light from the left visual field falls on the right side of each retina
 Light travels in a straight line through the cornea and lens
 This results in the image projected on the retina actually being
upside down and reversed from left to right as compared to the
visual fields
Through the Eyes to the Brain
 Areas of the retina can be divided into halves
 Halves toward the temples of the head are called
the temporal retinas
 Halves toward the center, or nose, are called the
nasal retinas
 Information from the left visual field (falling on
the right side of each retina) goes directly to
the right visual cortex
 Information from the right visual field (falling
on the left side of each retina) goes directly to
the left visual cortex
 Because the axons from the temporal haves of each
retina project to the visual cortex on the same side
of the brain and the axons from the nasal halves
cross over to the opposite side of the brain
 Optic chiasm – point of cross over
Rods & Cones: Different Aspects of Vision
 Rods: (about 120 million in each eye) found all over the retina
except in the very center, which contains only cones
 Sensitive to brightness but not wavelength
 So they only see in black & white
 Very sensitive because many rods are connected to a single bipolar
cell, so that if only one rod is stimulated by a photon of light, the
brain perceives the whole area of those rods as stimulated (because
the brain is receiving the message from the single bipolar cell)
 But, because the brain doesn’t know exactly which rod is actually
sending the message, the visual sharpness is quite low
 Ex. Things seen in low levels of light, such as twilight or in a dimly lit
room, are fuzzy and grayish
Rods & Cones: Different Aspects of Vision
 Because rods are located on the periphery of the retina, they are also
responsible for peripheral vision
 Rods also allow the eyes to adapt to low light
 Dark adaptation – the recovery of the eye’s sensitivity to visual
stimuli in darkness after exposure to bright lights
 The brighter the light was, the longer it takes the rods to adapt to the
new lower levels of light
 Ex. The bright headlights of an oncoming car can leave a person less able to see
for a while after it has passed
 Full dark adaptation, when going from more constant light to darkness,
such as turning out your bedroom lights, takes about 30 minutes
Rods & Cones: Different Aspects of Vision
 Cones: (6 million in each eye) located all over the retina but are more
concentrated at its very center called the fovea
 50,000 cones have a private line to the optic nerve (one bipolar cell for each
cone)
 This means the cones are the receptors for visual acuity
 Cones need a lot more light to function than rods do
 Work best in bright light, which is also when people see things most clearly
 The cones have to adapt to the increased level of light
 Light adaptation – the recovery of the eye’s sensitivity to visual stimuli in
light after exposure to darkness
 Occurs much more quickly than the rods adaptation to darkness (a few seconds
at most)
 Cones are sensitive to different wavelengths of light, so they are responsible
for color vision
Perception of Color: Theories
 Still unsure about the role cones play in the sensation of color
 2 theories originally proposed in the 1800s
 Trichromatic theory (Young & von Helmholtz) – proposes
that there are 3 types of cones: red cones, blue cones, and green
cones (one for each primary color of light)
 Different shades of colors correspond to different amounts of light
received by each of these three types of cones
 These cones then fire their message to the brain’s vision centers
 It is the combination of cones and the rate at which they are firing
that determine the color that will be seen
 Ex. If the red and green cones are firing in response to a stimulus
at fast enough rates, the color the person sees is yellow
Perception of Color: Theories
 In 1964 Brown & Wald identified 3 types of cones in the retina
 Each sensitive to a range of wavelengths, measured in nanometers, and a
peak sensitivity that roughly corresponds to three different colors
 The peak wavelength of light the cones seem to be most sensitive to is
different from Young & von Helmholtz’s original 3 corresponding colors
 Short wavelength cones detect what we see as blue-violet
 Medium wavelength cones detect what we see as green
 Long wavelength cones detect what we see as green-yellow
 Interestingly, none of the cones identified by Brown & Wald have a peak
sensitivity to light where most people see red
 But, each cone responds to light across a range of wavelengths, not just its
wavelength of peak sensitivity
 Depending on the intensity of the light, both the medium and long wavelength
cones respond to light that appears red
Perception of Color: Theories
 The trichromatic theory may seem to be adequate to explain
color vision
 But, there is a phenomenon this theory cannot explain
 Afterimages – images that occur when a visual sensation
persists for a brief time even after the original stimulus is
removed
 Ex. If a person stares at a picture for a while, about a minute,
and then looks away to a blank white wall or sheet of paper, that
person will see an afterimage of the picture
 Colors in afterimages do not match the colors in the original
image
 Stare at the white cross for 30 seconds then look at the white
wall or a white sheet of paper
Perception of Color: Theories
 Color afterimage is explained by the 2nd theory of color
vision
 Opponent-process theory – proposes that visual neurons
(or groups of neurons) are stimulated by light of one color
and inhibited by light of another color
 4 primary colors: red, green, blue, and yellow
 Colors are arranged in pairs, red-green and blue-yellow
 If one color of a pair is strongly stimulated, the other is
inhibited and cannot be working
 Ex. There are no reddish-greens or bluish-yellows
Perception of Color: Theories
 So, how does this color paring theory explain color afterimage?
 Some neurons (or groups of neurons) are stimulated by light from one part of the
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visual spectrum and inhibited by light from a different part of the spectrum
Ex. A red-green ganglion cell in the retina whose baseline (average) activity is weak
when we expose it to white light
However, the cell’s activity is increased by red light, so we experience the color red
If we stimulate the cell with red light for a long enough period of time, the cell
becomes fatigued
If we then swap out the red light for a white light, the now-tired cell responds even
less than the original baseline and the color green is experienced because green is
associated with a decrease in the responsiveness of this cell
Exposure to red light
red
fatigue
baseline
green
Exposure to white light
Perception of Color: Theories
 Both trichromatic theory and opponent-process theory play a part in
explaining color vision
 Trichromatic theory: explains what is happening with raw stimuli,
the actual detection of various wavelengths of light
 Opponent-process theory: explains afterimages and other aspects of
visual perception that occur after the initial detection of light
 Opponent-process cells (the red-green and blue-yellow cells) are also
located in the thalamus in an area called the lateral geniculate nucleus (LGN)
 The LGN is part of the pathway that visual information takes to the occipital
lobe
 When cones in the retina send signals through the retinal bipolar and
ganglion cells we see the red versus green parings and blue versus yellow
parings
 Together the retinal cells and the cells in the LGN appear to be the ones
responsible for opponent-processing of color vision and the afterimage effect
Color Blindness
 Color blindness or color-deficient vision is caused by defective cones in the
retina
 3 types of color-deficient vision
 Monochrome color blindness: very rare, people either have no cones or
cones that are not working at all
 If they have cones, they only have one type and, therefore, everything looks the same
to the brain, shades of gray
 Dichromatic vision: having one cone that does not work properly
 Protanopia (red-green color deficiency): due to the lack of functioning red cones
 Deuteranopia (another type of red-green deficiency): due to lack of functioning green
cones
 In both types, the individual confuses reds and greens and sees the world primarily in
blues, yellows, and shades of grey
 Tritanopia (blue-yellow deficiency): less common than dichromatic,
results from lack of functioning blue cones
 Individuals see the world primarily in reds, greens, and shades of gray
Color Blindness
 Only individuals with normal color vision will be able to see
the numbers in the circles
Color Blindness
 Why are most people with color-deficient vision men?
 Color-deficient vision involving one set of cones is inherited via sex-linked
inheritance
 The gene for color-deficient vision is recessive
 To inherit a recessive trait, you normally need two of the recessive genes, one
from each parent
 But the gene for color-deficient vision is attached to the X chromosome
(males = XY, females = XX)
 The Y chromosome is smaller than the X and has fewer genes
 One gene the Y chromosome lacks is the one that would suppress the gene for
color-deficient vision
 For a female to have color-deficient vision, she must inherit two recessive
genes, one from each parent
 But, for a male to have color-deficient vision, he only needs to inherit one
recessive gene, the one passed on to him on his mother’s X chromosome
Perception of Sound: Good Vibrations
 Sound waves are the vibrations of the molecules of air that
surround us
 Sound waves have similar properties to those of light: wavelength,
amplitude, and purity
 Wavelength: interpreted by the brain as the frequency or pitch
(high, medium, or low) of a sound
 Amplitude: interpreted as volume (how soft or loud a sound is)
 Timbre: (corresponds to saturation or purity in light) richness in the
tone of the sound
 People are able to hear a limited range of frequencies
 Frequency is measured in hertz (Hz): cycles (waves) per second
 Humans limits are between 20 and 20,000 Hz, with the most
sensitivity from about 2,000 to 4,000 Hz (very important for
conversational speech)
Structure of the Ear: Follow the Vibes
 Outer ear
 Pinna – the visible, external part of the ear that serves as a
kind of concentration, funneling the sound waves from the
outside into the structures of the ear
 Auditory canal – (ear canal) the short tunnel that runs from
the pinna down to the tympanic membrane (eardrum)
 When sound waves hit the eardrum, they cause 3 tiny bones in
the middle ear to vibrate
Structure of the Ear: Follow the Vibes
 Middle ear: 3 tiny bones
 Hammer (malleus)
 Anvil (incus)
 Stirrup (stapes)
 Named for the shapes of the bones
 The vibration of the these 3 bones amplifies the vibrations from the eardrum
 The stirrup, the last bone in the chain, causes a membrane covering the opening
of the inner ear to vibrate
Structure of the Ear: Follow the Vibes
 Inner ear: membrane called the oval window, its vibrations set off a chain
reaction within the inner ear
 Cochlea: snail-shaped structure making up the inner ear, filled with fluid
 When the oval window vibrates, it causes the fluid in the cochlea to vibrate, this fluid
surrounds a membrane running through the middle of the cochlea called the basilar
membrane
 Basilar Membrane: contains the organ of Corti
 Organ of Corti – contains the receptor cells for the sense of hearing
 When the basilar membrane vibrates, it vibrates the organ of Corti, causing it to brush
against a membrane above it
 Special cells called hair cells are the receptors for sound and are located on the organ of
Corti
 When these auditory receptor hair cells are bent up against the other membrane, it causes
them to send a neural message through the auditory nerve (which contains the axons of all
the receptor neurons) and into the brain, where the auditory cortex will interpret the
sounds
 Transduction – transformation of the vibrations into neural messages
 The louder the sound in the outside world, the stronger the vibrations that
stimulate more of the hair cells, which the brain interprets as loudness
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7O-adw-HyrQ
Perceiving Pitch
 Pitch – how high or low a sound is
 3 primary theories regarding how the brain receives
information about pitch
 Place theory – the pitch a person hears depends on where the
hair cells that are stimulated are located on the Organ of Corti
 Ex. If a person is hearing a high-pitched sound, all the hair cells near the
oval window will be stimulated, for a high-pitched sound the hair cells
stimulated will be further away on the organ of Corti
 Frequency theory – pitch is related to how fast the basilar
membrane vibrates
 The faster the membrane vibrates the higher the pitch, the slower it
vibrates the lower the pitch
 In this theory, all the auditory neurons fire at the same time
Perceiving Pitch
 Both place and frequency theory are correct up to a certain point
 For place theory to be correct, the basilar membrane has to
vibrate unevenly (different areas vibrate for different pitches)
 This is true when the frequency of sound is above 1,000 Hz
 Correct for moderate to high pitches
 For frequency theory to be correct, the neurons connected to
the hair cells would have to fire as fast as the basilar membrane
vibrates
 This is true with the frequency of a sound is below 1,000 Hz, because
neurons don’t appear to fire at exactly the same time and rate when
frequencies are faster than 1,000 times per second
 Correct for low pitches
Perceiving Pitch
 3rd theory
 Volley principle – groups of auditory neurons take turns
firing in a process called volleying
 Accounts for pitches from about 400 Hz up to about 4,000 Hz
 If a person hears a tone of about 3,000 Hz, it means that three
groups of neurons have taken turns sending the message to the
brain
 First group for the first 1,000 Hz, second group for the next
1,000 Hz, and so on
Types of Hearing Impairments
 Conduction hearing impairment – sound vibrations
cannot be passed from the eardrum to the cochlea
 Causes include damaged eardrum
 Bones of the middle ear (usually from an infection)
 Hearing aids may be able to restore some hearing
Types of Hearing Impairments
 Nerve hearing impairment – problems lies either in the inner ear or in the
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auditory pathways and cortical areas of the brain
Normal aging causes the loss of hair cells in the cochlea, and exposure to loud
noises can damage hair cells
Tinnitus is the term used to refer to an annoying ringing in the ears and it can be
caused by infections or loud noises
Because the damage is to the nerves or the brain, this type of impairment cannot
be helped with ordinary hearing aids, which are basically sound amplifiers
Cochlear implants – a device that sends signals from a microphone worn behind
the ear to a sound processor worn on the belt or in a pocket, which then translates
those signals into electrical stimuli that are sent to a series of electrodes implanted
directly into the cochlea
 The brain processes the electrode information as sound
Chemical Senses: It Tastes Good and
Smells Even Better
 The sense of taste and sense of smell are very closely related
 Ex. Notice how when your nose is all stopped up, your sense
of taste is affected too?
 This is because the sense of taste is really a combination of
taste and smell
 Without input from the nose, there are actually only four,
possibly five, kinds of taste sensors in the mouth
Gustation: How We Taste the World –
Taste Buds
 Taste buds – the common name for the taste receptor cells,
special kinds of neurons found in the mouth that are responsible
for the sense of taste or gustation
 Most taste buds are located on the tongue, but there are a few on
the roof of the mouth, the cheeks, and under the tongue
 How sensitive people are to various tastes depends on how many
taste buds they have
 Some people have only around 500 and others have about 10,000 (the
latter are called “supertasters”… what an odd super power)
 Contrary to popular belief the “little bumps” on the tongue are
called papillae and are not taste buds
 Taste buds actually line the walls of the papillae
Taste Buds
 Each taste bud has about 20 receptors that are
very similar to the receptor sites on receiving
neurons at the synapse
 Receptors on taste buds work exactly like
receptor sites on neurons
 They receive molecules of various substances that
fit into the receptor like a key in a lock
 Taste is called a chemical sense because it
works with the molecules of foods people eat
in the same way neural receptors work with
neurotransmitters
 When the molecules (dissolved in saliva) fit
into the receptors, a signal is fired to the brain,
which then interprets the taste sensation
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FSHGuc
gnvLU
Gustation: The Five Basic Tastes
 4 primary tastes: sweet, sour, salty, and bitter
 5th taste – umami
 Umami receptors detect a pleasant “brothy” taste associated with
foods like chicken soup, tuna, kelp, cheese, and soy products
 Glutamate is the substance that generates the sensation of umami
 Glutamate is present in the foods mentioned above as well as human
breast milk and is also the reason that the seasoning MSG
(monosodium glutamate) adds a pleasant flavor to foods
 The 5 taste sensations work together, along with the sense of
smell and the texture, temperature, and “heat” of foods to
produce thousands of taste sensations
 Although researchers once believed that certain tastes were
located on certain places on the tongue, it is now known that all
of the taste sensations are processed all over the tongue
The Sense of Scents: Olfaction
 Olfaction or olfactory sense – the ability to smell odors
 Sense of smell is chemical
 The outer part of the nose serves the same purpose for odors that
the pinna and ear canal serve for sounds: both are just ways to
collect the sensory information and get it to the part of the body
that will translate it into neural signals (transduction)
 The part of the olfactory system that transduces odors (turns them
into neural messages) is located at the top of the nasal passages
 This area of receptor cells is only about a square inch in each nasal
cavity yet contains about 10 million olfactory receptors
Olfaction: Receptor Cells
 Olfactory receptor cells each have about 6-12 little “hairs” called
cilia that project into the cavity
 Like taste buds, there are receptor sites on these hair cells that
send signals to the brain when stimulated by the molecules of
substances in the air moving past them
 This means there are actually little particles of what ever you are
smelling IN your nose
 Signals from the olfactory receptors in the nasal cavity do not
follow the same path as the signals from all the other senses
 Vision, hearing, taste, and touch all pass through the thalamus and
then on to the area of the cortex that process that particular
information
 Sense of smell has its own special place in the brain – the olfactory
bulbs
Olfaction: Olfactory Bulbs
 Located right on top of the sinus cavity on each side of the brain directly
beneath the frontal lobes
 Olfactory receptors send their neural signals directly up to these bulbs,
bypassing the thalamus
 Information is then sent from the olfactory bulbs to higher cortical
areas, including the primary olfactory cortex, the orbitofrontal cortex,
and the amygdala
Somesthetic Senses: What the Body
Knows
 What is thought of as the sense of touch is really several
sensations, originating in several different places in and on
the body
 More accurate to refer to these as the body senses or
somesthetic senses
 3 somesthetic sense systems
 Skin senses – touch, pressure, temperature, and pain
 Kinesthetic sense – the location of body parts in relation to
each other
 Vestibular senses – movement and body position
Types of Sensory Receptors in the Skin
 There are around 6 different receptors in the layers of the
skin
 Some respond to only one kind of sensation
 Ex. Pacinian corpuscles are just beneath the skin and respond to
changes in pressure
 There are nerve endings that wrap around the ends of hair
follicles (this is why it hurts to pluck your eyebrows)
 These nerve endings are sensitive to both pain and touch
 There are free nerve endings just beneath the uppermost layer
of the skin that respond to changes in temperature, pressure,
and pain
Types of Pain
 Visceral pain – pain and pressure in the organs
 Somatic pain – pain sensations in the skin, muscles, tendons,
and joints carried on large nerve fibers
 Body’s warning system that something is being, or is about to be,
damaged and tends to be sharp and fast
 Another type of somatic pain is carried on small nerve fibers and
is a slower, more general ache
 This type of pain acts as a sort of reminder system, keeping people
from further injury by reminding them the body has already been
damaged
 Ex. If you hit your thumb with a hammer, the immediate pain
sensation is the 1st kind of somatic pain, but the later aching of the
bruised tissue reminds you to take it easy on that thumb
Abnormalities in Pain Sensation
 There are people who are born without the ability to feel pain
 Rare conditions called congenital analgesia and congenital insensitivity to pain with
anhidrosis (CIPA)
 Children with these disorders cannot feel pain when they cut or scrape themselves,
leading to an increased risk of infection when the injury goes untreated
 Theses disorders affect the neural pathways that carry pain, heat, and cold sensations
 Those with CIPA have additional disruption in the body’s heat-cold sensing perspiration system,
so that the person is unable to cool off the body by sweating
 Phantom limb pain – occurs when a person who has had an arm or leg removed
sometimes “feels” pain in the missing limb
 50% - 80% of people who have had amputations experience various sensations:
burning, shooting pains, or pins-and-needles sensations where the amputated limb
used to be
 Believed to be caused by the traumatic injury to the nerves during amputation
 http://vimeo.com/52858652
Pain: Gate-Control Theory
 Suggests that pain signals must pass through a “gate” located in the spinal
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cord
This gate can be closed by nonpain signals coming into the spinal cord
from the body and by signals coming from the brain
Stimulation of pain receptor cells releases a chemical called substance P (P
for pain of course)
Substance P released into the spinal cord activates other neurons that
send their messages through spinal gates (opened by the pain signal)
From the spinal cord, the message goes to the brain, activating cells in
the thalamus, somatosensory cortex, areas of the frontal lobes, and the
limbic system
The brain then interprets the pain information and sends signals that
either open the spinal gates farther, causing a greater experience of pain,
or close them, lessening the pain
Pain: Gate-Control Theory
 The brain’s decision to either further open or close the “pain gates”
is influenced by the psychological aspects of the pain-causing
stimulus
 Anxiety, fear, and helplessness intensify pain
 Laughter, distraction, and sense of control diminish it
 This is why people might bruise themselves and not know it if they
were concentrating on something else
 Pain can also be affected by competing signals from other skin
senses
 This is why rubbing a sore spot can reduce the feeling of pain
 The same psychological aspects can also influence the release of
endorphins which is the body’s natural version of morphine
 Endorphins can inhibit the transmission of pain signals in the brain,
and in the spinal cord they can inhibit the release of substance P
The Kinesthetic Sense
 Kinesthesia
 Special receptors located in the muscles, tendons, and joints are
part of the body’s sense of movement and position in space (the
location of the arms, legs, and so forth in relation to one
another)
 The special receptors are called proprioceptors
 They tell you about joint movement or the muscles stretching
or contracting
 This is why when you close your eyes and raise you hand
above your head, you know where your hand is
The Vestibular Sense: AKA Balance
 Structures responsible for this sense are located in the innermost chamber
of the ear
 Tell us about the position of the body in relation to the ground and movement
of the head
 2 kinds of vestibular organs
 Otolith organs – tiny sacs located just above the cochlea
 Sacs contain tiny crystals suspended in a gelatin-like fluid (kind of like fruit in a bowl of
Jello)
 As the head moves, the crystals cause the fluid to vibrate, setting off tiny hairlike
receptors on the inner surface of the sac
 This tells the person which direction they are moving
 Semicircular canals – 3 semicircular tubes that are also filled with fluid and
will stimulate hairlike receptors when rotated
 Having 3 tubes allows one to be located in each of the three planes of motion on which
the body can rotate
 When the body rotates it sets off the receptors in these canals
Motion Sickness
 The vestibular sense is responsible for motion sickness
 Ex. When you spin around and then stop, the fluid in the horizontal canal is still
rotating and will make you feel dizzy because your body is telling you that you
are still moving, but your eyes are telling you that you have stopped.
 This disagreement between what the eyes say and what the body says is
what causes motion sickness
 Motion sickness – the tendency to get nauseated when in a moving vehicle,
especially one with irregular movement (like boats)
 Sensory conflict theory
 Normally the vestibular sense coordinates with the other senses, but for some
people, the information from the eyes may conflict a little too much with the
vestibular organs, and dizziness, nausea and disorientation are the result
 Focusing on a distant point or object provides visual information about how
a person is moving, bringing the sensory input into agreement with the
visual input, and helping to relieve motion sickness
Perception
 Perception – the method by which the brain takes all the
sensations people experience at any given moment and
allows them to be interpreted in some meaningful fashion
 Perception has some individual differences
 Ex. People looking at a cloud in the sky may perceive it to look
like different things
 They both see the same cloud, but they perceive it differently
 But there are also similarities in the way people perceive the
world around them
The Constancies: Size, Shape, and
Brightness
 Size constancy – the tendency to interpret an object as always being the
same size, regardless of its distance from the viewer (or the size of the image
it casts on the retina)
 If an object that is normally perceived to be about 6 feet tall appears very small
on the retina, it will be interpreted as being very far away
 Shape constancy – the tendency to interpret the shape of an object as
constant, even when it changes on the retina
 This is why a person still perceives a coin as a circle even if it is held at an angle
that makes it appear to be an oval on the retina
 Brightness constancy – the tendency to perceive the apparent brightness
of an object as the same even when the light conditions change
 Black pants and a white shirt viewed in broad daylight, the shirt will appear
much brighter than the pants, but in dimmer light even though the pants and
shirt have less light to reflect the shirt will still appear to be just as much brighter
than the pants as before
 Because the difference in amounts of light reflected from each piece of clothing is still the
same difference, even though there is less light to reflect, the difference is still the same
 Size constancy
 Shape constancy
 Brightness constancy
Gestalt Principles
 The original Gestalt focus on human perception can still be
seen in certain basic principles including the tendency to
group objects and perceive whole shapes
Gestalt Principles: Figure-Ground
Relationships
 Figure-ground relationships – the tendency to perceive
objects or figures as existing on a background
 People seem to have a preference for picking out figures from
backgrounds as early as birth
 Reversible figures – the figure and the ground seem to
switch back and forth
Gestalt Principles
 Proximity – tendency to perceive objects that are close to
one another as part of the same grouping
 Similarity – tendency to perceive things that look similar as
being part of the same group
 Closure – tendency to complete figures that are incomplete
Gestalt Principles
 Continuity – tendency to perceive things as simply as possible with
a continuous pattern rather than with a complex, broken-up pattern
 Contiguity – tendency to perceive two things that happen close
together in time as being related
 Usually the first event is seen as causing the second event
 Ex. Ventriloquists make vocalizations without appearing to move their
own mouths but move their dummy’s mouth instead. The tendency to
believe that the dummy is doing the talking is largely due to contiguity
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TzlWlgC3Ew0&feature=related
 Common region – the tendency to perceive objects in a common
area or region as being in a group
Depth Perception
 Depth perception – the capability to see the world in three dimensions
 Develops very early in infancy, if not present from birth
 Cues for perceiving depth
 Monocular cues – require the use of only one eye
 Binocular cues – are a result of the slightly different visual patterns that exist
when the visual fields of both eyes are used
Depth Perception: Monocular Cues
 Often referred to as pictorial depth cues because artists can use
them to give the illusion of depth in paintings and drawings
 Linear perspective – the tendency for parallel lines to appear
to converge on each other
 Relative size – occurs when objects that a person expects to be
of a certain size appear to be small and are, therefore, assumed to
be farther away
Depth Perception: Monocular Cues
 Overlap (interposition) – the assumption that an object that
appears to be blocking part of another objects is in front of the
second object and closer to the viewer
 Aerial (atmospheric) perspective – the haziness that
surrounds objects that are farther away from the viewer, causing
the distance to be perceived as greater
Depth Perception: Monocular Cues
 Texture gradient – the tendency for textured surfaces to
appear to become smaller and finer as distance from the
viewer increases
 Motion parallax – the perception of motion of objects
that are closer to us to appear to move more quickly than
objects that are farther away
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XypB2NnWeTQ
Depth Perception: Monocular Cues
 Accommodation – the brain’s use of information about the
changing thickness of the lens of the eye in response to looking at
objects that are close or far away
 Brain uses thickness of the optic lens as an indication of the distance
of objects
 Only monocular cue that is not considered a pictorial cue
 Considered a muscular cue
Depth Perception: Binocular Cues
 Convergence – muscular cue, the rotation of
the two eyes in their sockets to focus on a
single object
 greater convergence for closer objects (almost as
great as crossing the eyes)
 lesser convergence if objects are distant
 If you hold your finger up in front of your nose,
and then move it away and back again, the
feeling in the muscles of your eyes is
convergence
Depth Perception: Binocular Cues
 Binocular disparity – the difference in the images between the
two eyes, which is greater for objects that are close and smaller for
distant objects
 Fancy way of saying that because the eyes are a few inches apart, they
don’t see exactly the same image
 The brain interprets the images on the retina to determine distance
from the eyes
 If the two images are very different, the object must be pretty close
 If the two images are almost identical, the object is far enough away to
make the retinal disparity very small
 Ex. Hold an object in front of your nose, close one eye, note where
the object is, and the open that eye and close the other
 There should be quite a difference in views
 But if you do the same thing with an object that is farther away, the image
doesn’t seem to change as much
Perceptual Illusions
 An illusion is a perception that does not correspond to reality:
people think they see something when the reality is quite
different
 Visual stimuli that “fool” or “trick” the eye
 Research involving illusions can often provide valuable
information about how the sensory receptors and sense
organs work and how humans interpret sensory input
Perceptual Illusions: The Herman Grid
 At the intersections of the white lines gray blobs or diamonds appear
but fade away when you try to look at them directly
 One explanation suggests that the responses of neurons in the primary
visual cortex, called “simple cells,” respond best to bars of light of a
specific orientation
 Research has shown that the illusion disappears when the edges of the
grid lines are slightly curved
 Further suggesting that the illusion may be due to a unique function of
how our visual system processes information
Perceptual Illusions: Muller-Lyer Illusion
 Distortion happens when the viewer tries to determine if the
two lines are exactly the same length
 They are actually identical, but one line looks longer than the
other
Perceptual Illusions: Muller-Lyer Illusion
 Explanation is that most people live in a world with lots of buildings,
which have corners
 When outside a building, the corner of the building seems to be
closer to you and the sides seem to be moving away
 When inside the building, the corner of the building seems to be
farther away from you and the walls seem to be moving toward you
 In their minds, people “pull” the inward-facing angles toward them
like the outside corners of a building and the outward-facing angles
“stretch” away like the inside corners of the room
Perceptual Illusions: Moon Illusion
 The moon on the horizon appears to be much larger than the moon
in the sky
 Apparent distance hypothesis – one explanation
 The moon high in the sky is alone with no cues for depth surrounding it
 But on the horizon, the moon appears behind trees and houses, cues for
depth that make the horizon seem very far away
 The moon is seen as being behind these objects and, therefore, father
away from the viewer
 Because people know that objects that are farther away from them yet
still appear large are very large, they “magnify” the moon in their minds
 Misapplication of the principle of size constancy
Perceptual Illusions: Illusions of Motion
 Autokinetic effect – a small, stationary light in a darkened
room will appear to move or drift because there are no
surrounding cues to indicate that the light is not moving
 Stroboscopic motion – rapid series of still pictures will seem
to be in motion
Perceptual Illusions: Illusions of Motion
 Phi phenomenon – lights turned on in sequence appear to move
 http://www.yorku.ca/eye/balls.htm
 Seeing motion in static images also occurs
 “Rotating Snakes” illusion
 Explanations range from factors that depend on the image’s luminance and/or the
color arrangement, or possibly slight differences in the time it takes the brain to
process this information
 Researchers using fMRI have found there is an increase in brain activity in a visual
area of the brain sensitive to motion
 Activity is greatest when accompanied by guided eye movements, suggesting eye
movements play a significant role in the perception of the illusion
Perceptual Illusions: Illusions of Motion
 Eye movements have also been found to be a primary cause for
the illusory motion seen in images of The Enigma painting
 The rings start to “sparkle” or rotate
 Research has shown that microsaccades, tiny eye movements,
are directly linked to the perception of motion in the painting
Other Factors that Influence Perception
 Perceptual set (expectancy) – the tendency to perceive
things a certain way because previous experiences or
expectations influence those perceptions
 Top-down processing – the use of preexisting knowledge to
organize individual features into a unified whole
 Ex. When putting a jigsaw puzzle together, using a picture of the
finished puzzle to refer to as a guide
 Bottom-up processing – the analysis of the smaller features
to build up to a complete perception
 Ex. Having to put a jigsaw puzzle together without a picture of the
finished puzzle to refer to
Other Factors that Influence Perception
 Some research suggests that people of different cultures perceive
objects differently because of different expectancies
 Ex. Devil’s Trident
 Europeans and North Americans insist on making this figure 3-
dimensional, so they have trouble looking at it because it is
impossible if perceived as 3-dimensional
 People in less technologically oriented cultures have little difficulty
with seeing or even reproducing this figure, because they see it as a
2-dimensional drawing, just a collection of lines and circles rather
than a solid object
Applying Perception to Magic?
 Recently, there has been interest in the neuroscientific study of
magic
 Neuroscientists have studied professional magicians in attempts
to better understand the brain mechanisms underlying the
illusions
 Several types of illusions have been identified including visual
and cognitive illusions
Applying Perception to Magic?
 Visual illusions occur when our individual perception does not match
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a physical stimulus
Caused by organizational or processing biases in the brain
Our brain activity caused by our perception of a visual illusion does
not directly match the brain activity associated with the physical
stimulus
Ex. If you grasp a pen or pencil in the middle and then shake or
wiggle it up and down it appears to bend or be made of rubber
This occurs because of special neurons in the visual cortex, called endstopped neurons, which are sensitive to both motion and edges
 These neurons respond differently if an object is bouncing or moving up
and down quickly, causing us to perceive a solid object as if it is bending
 A different explanation http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aeL-
zaVIFuA
Applying Perception to Magic?
 Another effect or trick that is based on the functioning of our visual
system is when a magician makes an object disappear
 Like a ball vanishing into the air or the outfit of an assistant changing
suddenly
 By showing the audience the target object, such as the ball or outfit,
and then removing it very quickly from the visual field, the persistence
of vision effect will make it appear that the object is still there
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=goYPBRA0i-0
 Due to a response in vision neurons called the after-discharge, which
will create an afterimage that lasts for up to 100 milliseconds after a
stimulus is removed
 Kinda like twirling a sparkler around quickly in the dark, you will see a
trail of light following the sparkler